Bernie Taupin

Everything that Elton John has ever sung that was not a cover or for Disney was written by Taupin. They got together because Elton liked singing songs but not writing lyrics, and Taupin liked writing the lyrics but not singing the songs.

A typical Taupin-John collaboration involves Bernie writing out some songs on paper, then handing the papers to Elton, who chooses a few, and thinks of a way to set them to music and sing them. This is kind of unusual, because Taupin's idea of the tune is never communicated to Elton. I had a chance to ask Bernie if he ever was disappointed with the way Elton adapted one of his songs to music, and he claimed that he wasn't.